Curare's Adventures

Trekking Part 2: Briddhim

We arrived in Briddhim, the small village at the start/end of the Tamang Heritage trek, intending to stay the night. This was the afternoon of March 23. All day, as we had been trekking towards the north west, groups of school aged children with their parents had been walking in the opposite direction going to their villages higher in the mountains. We learned that Kathmandu had been closed and all children had been sent back to their homes. So, we were not surprised to hear, the morning of March 24, that Nepal had been locked down, with the army coming to check our papers and informing us that we could not go anywhere.

So began our nine day stay in a small Tamang village in the north of Nepal. At first the army told us we had to stay on the guest house grounds and must go inside of our rooms whenever we saw other people, but after a few days this rule was relaxed and we were allowed to walk from one end of the village to the other. A lot of locals came to visit the owner and his wife and at first these guests all wore face masks, but because the owner was well liked and respected he convinced the villagers that we were safe to stay so the locals soon came to visit without the masks. We later heard stories of other travellers that had been told to leave villages and re-locate to a tent on the edge of town because locals had heard on the radio that foreigners had brought the virus, but many of these travellers had been living in Nepal for months.

Our accommodation (the Potala Guesthouse) was like the teahouses we stayed in on the Langtang part of our trek. The guest rooms were in a long oblong building and each room had an attached bathroom with a squat toilet. Located at one end of this building was the communal shower room. After the sun hit the roof of the building there was endless solar heated hot water, but this hot water was only used for bathing and washing clothes, the concept of washing dishes in hot water and soap had not yet arrived. We ate in a different building from the sleeping quarters, in large room with a wood stove, and the kitchen was in a wing of this building, out of a door; all of the food had to be carried through the cold outside air. Daytime temperatures were warm enough for shorts, but mornings and evenings were cold. Even though the wood stove was lit every night around 6 P.M. the dining room never really got warm, so in the mornings and evenings we ate, and sat around, in our puffy ski jackets, often wearing hats as well.

There was not a whole lot for us to do; meals were selected from a menu and we never had to help with the washing up. Nevertheless days started at 0700 with a breakfast of tea and oatmeal with honey, or if you did not like oatmeal you could have an omelette, boiled eggs, pancakes, or chapatis with cheese (almost a grilled cheese sandwich). Lunch and dinner were pretty much the same, there was only one menu. A favourite of ours was the pizza, but there were also Momos (Tibetan dumplings), chow mein, various soups, fried rice, spaghetti with tomato sauce and, another favourite, fried potatoes with onions and greens. The food was prepared on a wood fired clay stove, all of it was very tasty and it was never burned, despite being cooked on an open flame.

 After breakfast was over we would read books, try to connect to the sketchy internet to hear news from the outside world, wash laundry by hand, play card games and go for a walk. Our guest house was located on the main track at the top of the village so first we walked in one direction and then, at the prayer flags by the funeral pyre, we would turn back, walk past our guesthouse towards the gompa and then down the hill to the creek. Despite walking this same route day after day, sometimes twice a day, we never got tired of the mountain views. While walking we were given the opportunity to observe life in a typical village: tilling tiny fields with an ox team, planting potatoes, herding cows, winnowing grain, collecting grass for animal feed, weaving on looms, and cutting firewood. One day we walked through the narrow village streets below our guesthouse, but the locals seemed uncomfortable with us there, so we only did that once.

Most days after lunch GG would help the owner build a rock wall to make a terraced garden. The guesthouse had a small apple orchard by the main track, down a wide flight of stone steps, but about 1/4 of the orchard was unusable because of the large boulders buried in the soil. The afternoon project was to smash these boulders into smaller pieces and then use the pieces to construct a wall so that more trees could be planted in the orchard and vegetables could be planted in the new terrace bed, close to the kitchen. GG put on his hiking boots for the task of swinging the sledgehammer and heaving the rocks into place, the others wore flip flops. Breaking up the metamorphic boulders was not easy, and the language difference made verbal communication difficult, but there was a lot of laughter. By the end of our nine day stay the wall was almost complete and the owner seemed incredibly grateful (translated via our guide "you can come anytime and stay with us for free"). It was such a small thing to do, and it helped GG pass the time, but this act of helping seemed to make GG an honorary member of their family.

On March 31, LE's birthday, the hosts surprised her with a birthday lunch and an evening party. LE should have suspected something when she saw the dead chicken being carried into the kitchen in the morning because everything on the menu was vegetarian, but the surprise lunch was a delicious chicken curry. Dinner was two of our favourites, chow mein and fried potatoes (which we shared) and once dinner was over the party began. The teenage son plugged in his ghetto blaster and played a Happy Birthday song (not a tune we recognized) and a cake with four large candles was brought in. Baking a cake on an open flame is tricky and getting cake ingredients in a small village probably even trickier, but it was perfect: fluffy, tasty, and even had a frosting. After eating cake LE was presented with small gifts of local handicrafts, tangible memories of a once-in-a-lifetime birthday. We will be able to recall this unique event for years to come. It was a wonderful way to end our nine day stay in Briddhim.

Trekking: Part 1

We started our Nepal trek (walk) the morning of March 17th, 2020. The planned itinerary was to trek northeastwards, up into the Himalayan valley of the Langtang Khola (river), then retrace our steps, and take a trail to the southeast which would lead us to the Gosaikunda Lakes. From there we would cross over the Laurebina pass (4610m) and continue trekking towards Kathmandu. This itinerary did not turn out as planned.

We left from Syabrubesi (1380m) at 7 A.M., GG carrying a 12 kg day pack and LE carrying only 8 kg. We had decided to hire a porter to carry the bulk of our gear so that we could enjoy the walk and spend time looking at, and taking photos of, the scenery, plants and animals. Our porter was a short, skinny young man, it looked like he could be blown off of the trail in a breeze, but he cheerfully carried our 20 kg of stuff and was always far ahead. Nar, our guide, stayed close by, pointing out things of interest, answering our questions and paying all of our bills. This was an unexpected bonus of hiring a guide; LE paid the money up front and that was it, we didn't open our wallets until we arrived back to Kathmandu. Our guide book told us that even with a guide we would likely have to pay for showers, electricity, and snacks, but we paid for nothing; it was an all inclusive holiday.

The walking paths/trails are well defined because these are the "roads" to the mountain villages; everyone walks, there are no vehicles, not even ATVs. At lower elevations we were walking through dry forest, but as we walked ever higher the valley opened up and eventually the trail was in the alpine, with only a few trees in sheltered locations. In Canada most hiking trails gain elevation via a series of switchbacks or up a long gradual slope; in Nepal we went higher and higher using a series of extremely irregular stone steps. LE was wearing her FitBit and one day we climbed the equivalent of 402 flights of stairs, another day it was 398 flights; despite not doing any rigorous training beforehand both LE and GG managed to complete each day without collapsing. There were not that many other trekkers on the trail, but we did have to get out of the way of several donkey trains carrying supplies to the villages in the upper valley. Everything is brought in by foot, or on donkeys; food, cement blocks for building, wiring, toilets, wooden beams, cast iron heating stoves, even power poles for the proposed new electric grid.

The first day of the trek we walked 17.5 km and ascended 1070 meters, stopping for the night at a place named Upper Rimche (2450m). Why this place had a name we never understood because all that was there was a "teahouse" (a place for trekkers to get food and spend the night). Teahouse trekking is simple and easy because we did not need to take anything except our sleeping bags; no tents, no food, no plates and cutlery and no cook-stove. Three meals a day are available and almost all of the teahouses provide beds. There are so many teahouses along the trail we could have taken our time and walked only a few kilometers each day, but we had a planned itinerary and at this point we were sticking to the plan.

The second day was a long one, we walked 21.1 km and ascended 1100 meters, but unlike the first day this second day had sections where we walked downhill, so all of our hard won elevation was lost and had to be re-gained. This was also the day we walked through a large field of rock debris, the scar from the 2015 earthquake. The original village of Langtang was somewhere beneath our feet, the new village has been rebuilt on the northeast side of the debris field. Our guide did not want to stop in new Langtang (we assume he was fearful of spirits) so we struggled up a final ascent to the small community of Mundu (3550m) to stay the night.

Waking up the morning of the third day the views to the east were stunning with snowy peaks on the Nepal-Tibet border shining in the distance. This day was relatively short, only 6.8 km and a 320 m elevation gain. We arrived in the village of Kyangjing Gompa (3870m) in time for a lunch followed by a 6 km walk to the north to get a better view of Langtang Lirung, at 7227 m the highest peak in the Langtang valley. When we returned to the teahouse there was still time to walk around the village to take photos of yaks before it started to snow.

The fourth day was a rest day - really? We woke to six cm of snow covering the rooftops, the mud, the yak droppings and the trails. Despite not being able to see the track we set off on a half-day hike to the hilltop of Kyangjing Ri (4773m) overlooking the village. It was slow going because of the slippery conditions and lack of oxygen but when we reached the top the views to the south and east were amazing; the snow covered village below and the peaks of Gangchenpo (6378m), Langshisa Ri (6560m), and Gurkarpo Ri (6889m), as well as many other mountains of 5000 plus meters filling the sky. Although it was only 10 A.M. clouds had started to form so we did not have a view of the peaks to the north and west and as we started to descend the clouds followed us. When we reached our teahouse all of the mountains had disappeared but after lunch GG and LE decided to go for a walk anyway, without our guide, following the river valley to the east. With grey, forbidding skies and no mountains to see this was desolate scenery; soon it started to snow again. A few more centimeters had accumulated by the time we returned to the teahouse and Nar informed us there was now "too much snow to go to Gosaikunda Lakes" - did we want to trek on the Tamang Heritage Trail instead? After only 4 days our plan had to be changed.

 

The Tamang Heritage Trail is a trekking route that consists of a loop on the western edge of Langtang National Park, an area that was restricted until 2004. The route passes through Tamang villages (the residents are of Tibetan descent) where we would see and experience village life and, if the sky was clear, there are glimpses of the Himalayas. The Trail's highest elevation is 3165m, below the snow line, so this was a reasonable trekking alternative. To reach the village of Briddhim (2229m), the start of the Trail, we would have to retrace our route as far as Upper Rimche but then we would follow a different path through the village of Sherpagaon (2563m), clinging to a hill-slope high above the Langtang Khola valley. So that is what we did, setting out the morning of the fifth day, March 21, stopping for a rest in new Langtang village for a cup of tea and an apple pie. After the disaster of the 2015 earthquake, when there was no communication with the outside world, the Nepali government installed a cell tower so we were finally able to get news on the internet. It was here that we learned Nepal was going into a country wide lockdown on March 23rd and that our Air Canada flight home had been cancelled. What could we do? Even if we made a dash for it we would not arrive in Syabrubesi until the evening of the 22nd, then to Kathmandu on the 23rd (if we could get a seat on the bus), and as of midnight on the 23rd Nepali airspace was shut. So we decided to stick with our revised plan and continued onward to Briddhim, stopping for the night in Sherpagaon and arriving in Briddhim just after lunch on March 23. We opted to spend the night at the Potala Guesthouse; this turned out to be a fortunate choice.

Two soldiers from the army arrived early on March 24th and told us we had to stay where we were. Briddhim was as far as we got - seven days on the trail. We ended up staying in place until April 1, but more about that in Trekking:Part 2.